


Illa Illa

by hibiscuses



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Tags to be added, slight angst, the other members are mentioned but not really there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:51:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9317945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hibiscuses/pseuds/hibiscuses
Summary: Jisoo is only trying again because Seungcheol is making him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is actually a sequel to pisces, it'd give some slight contextual understanding if you read it but it'll be okay if you don't.

Jisoo keeps convincing himself he’s over Junhui, because it’s over, over,  _ over _ . Yet he finds himself clawing parts of himself internally every time he has a date and finds himself finally being over Junhui and ready to move on, to  _ love _ again, that very thought stops him from even doing so.

 

He can’t tell if he needs to relearn how to love others or love himself again. But do sequence ever matter? 

 

Will learning how to love himself again first work? When he thinks of shattering the mirrors after facing his own puffy eyes after a shower because the feeling of having the water splattering against his skin is such a close imitation to the rain? Will it bring him to trust and finally believe when he was told that he wasn’t the only one at fault with the whole Junhui thing? That he is actually worth loving to trust someone else again.

 

Will learning how to love others again first work? To hold something so unrequited, so unconditional, so romanticised and to put himself in such an impossibly difficult spot, to risk breaking an already broken self that would later be built on this love for others. To have a repeat telecast of Junhui only to find himself crumbling when the reason for your crumbles were precisely how you had to fix yourself.

 

Seungcheol puts him on infinite blind dates, claiming he needs to get out and Jisoo doesn’t have much against it. It’s simple, he would face the mirror and whisper to himself that it’s okay, Seungcheol was always steps ahead, taking precautions to ensure that those guys wouldn’t commit the same mistakes Junhui did. 

 

But how could he ever tell? 

 

Jisoo took a liking to one of those guys out there, he recalls, thinking that he could finally,  _ finally _ , be over Junhui and that he was ready for some fresh new start. His name was Hansol, humorous, sweet and fluent in English himself. With Hansol, Jisoo never have to fear that he couldn’t express ideas as well with Korean and Hansol was all around amazing, young and ambitious. 

 

After a week of texting, however, Hansol sends Jisoo a picture of him and another. Asking Jisoo how does he find his new boyfriend. Jisoo figures it was Seungkwan, his date prior to Hansol, the woes of a small community. Jisoo ends off by giving Hansol the vaguest of replies until they don’t talk anymore. 

 

“Seungcheol.” The older turns his head, “no more blind dates.” He requested, almost on the brim of tears. His thoughts are drifted and nowhere and Seungcheol knows he’s relieving the past. “Please.”

 

“But I can’t.” Seungcheol argues. “There’s one I agreed to tomorrow and you have to go.”

 

“No I don-” Jisoo raised his voice, stopping abruptly when his own voice cracked, “fuck you Seungcheol, fuck you for everything! Tell them you catfished me or something, I don’t know, fuck.”

 

Great, Seungcheol got his roommate cursing. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Junhui’s abrupt leaving got him cursing on top of everything and it got him crying too. And Seungcheol doesn’t want to seem like an asshole with a weeping Jisoo in front of him but-

 

“I can’t.” He can’t look at Jisoo. “It’s Jeonghan.” 

 

“Fuck you for using me to rekindle shit with your ex.” Jisoo’s voice is muffled, face slammed into the pillow he decided to wipe his tear with. “You’re fetching me there.”

 

Seungcheol smiles and ran his fingers through Jisoo’s hair, not really having the heart to send him to his own bed. 

 

As the younger slowly drifts into sleep on Seungcheol’s own bed, Seungcheol faces the ceiling and thinks about Jeonghan. Maybe Jisoo deserved Jeonghan for what Junhui did and Jeonghan deserved Jisoo for what Seungcheol did. Maybe he did something right for once.

 

The way Jisoo snuggled into his arms later reminds Seungcheol why he did whatever he felt was right to Jeonghan and the feelings come eating him up again. 

 

He shuts his eyes and he sees Jeonghan and Jisoo’s faces, and every bits of their memories, that  _ pisces  _ thing Jisoo talks about, the hair brush he would use to comb Jeonghan’s hair with and it spins, spins, spins, shapes and patterns and all that, much like a kaleidoscope. 

 

-

 

“Wouldn’t Jeonghan know me, your roommate?” Jisoo asks, fixing his seatbelt, “I mean, you have been together for so long and since you both are into guys, wouldn’t he question you?” 

 

Seungcheol fixes his hair with the mirror before checking the time, it’s almost an hour left till the blind date. It wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to reach the cafe of arranged date, (the one that Seungcheol knows Jeonghan loves). 

 

“I think he does, probably wants to see how his ex’s roommate look like.”  _ That he broke up with him. _ “Whether he’s cute, maybe he’s trying to anger me with you. Make me all jealous and what not. Take a shot though, he’s good enough for you.” 

 

Seungcheol could hear the  _ whatever  _ in Jisoo’s head as he sets off, ready to head for the aforementioned cafe.

 

“What time is the date?”

 

“In an hour.”

 

“We’re gonna be 45 minutes early.”

 

“Right.” Seungcheol answers,  _ but Jeonghan doesn’t like people late _ , it says in his descriptions and Seungcheol suddenly remembers all the times he turned up late on Jeonghan, the times he would laugh it off before he eventually got a little bit too tired for it, not that he was ever great at hiding his anger to begin with.

 

But it wasn’t always his fault because sometimes Jisoo forgets to eat properly after the agitation from falling in second place for that test and lived with the aftermath of his parents’ discipline when he never ended up first and Seungcheol has to force feed him. Because Jisoo’s still in the rain and because Seungcheol has taken it upon himself to take care of his roommate who have time and again proven that he can’t do it himself that he keeps Jeonghan waiting. 

 

He doesn’t want to choose between Jeonghan and Jisoo anymore.

 

It’s not really choosing right? Although it looked like he has chosen Jisoo, it’s not like Jisoo had at any point, not been there, albeit a little bit  _ missing  _ when Junhui came into the picture. It’s as if Seungcheol had taken up this responsibility to take care of the boy when they were chosen to be roommates, the way Jisoo seemed to live up to this caring image till he got too tired to do so, when he proved to Seungcheol that he is nothing more than the child he still looks like outside of academics. If, if, he chooses Jeonghan at that point, with Junhui gone, and Jisoo would be in a state worse than he is now (if that was even possible.)

 

Jeonghan, however, still has tastes that lingers on the tip of his tongue, playful laughters that still echoes in his head and soft, gentle touches that still pricks his skin. If he realises that Jisoo would probably, never, never, return what he gives any time soon, or ever, he should be pragmatic enough to choose Jeonghan. And things just gets as confusing as it is, because it was never a pragmatic issue to begin with, maybe by choosing Jisoo, he never did  _ chose  _ anyone, because now he’s driving Jisoo to Jeonghan, and it’s logical to assume that when he chose Jisoo, he shouldn’t have to bring him anywhere else for others other than himself, it’s not really a discrete variable, he just didn’t choose Jeonghan. 

 

“Seungcheol!” Jisoo’s scream brought him back to reality, when he realised he completely drove past a red light, was halfway through and thanked everything that the road was then empty. Bonus points for the fact that stopping right now would literally be right out the cafe. 

 

It’s now fifty minutes to the date because Seungcheol forgot traffic rules were a thing and the road was generally empty for today, and Jisoo sat on the car, deciding that he should just leave when they see Jeonghan enter. 

 

“It hasn’t rained for really long.” Jisoo comments, looking out. “I miss the rain.” 

 

“I don’t.” Seungcheol comments, picking up one of those newspapers he kept for days to keep himself occupied, not that Jisoo’s presence wasn’t doing a good job. “I don’t like it when you put yourself under the rain and risk getting sick for someone who can’t risk breaking an internet firewall for you.” 

 

Thank his creaky seatbelt, he could hear Jisoo fidget, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “It’s not about the risks.” The younger retaliates and Seungcheol shrugs nonchalantly, he’s not going to argue with him over this again. “It’s my way of doing things, it’s how I cope with unhappiness.”

 

“Well that’s a pretty shitty coping mechanism, considering how you’re not even happy to begin with.”  _ Shit. Shut up Seungcheol shut up shut up.  _ “He’s not even here in Korea and you’re here imagining that he’d here to worry wash with you because he taught you? News flash, Jisoo, he obviously doesn’t love you as much as you’d think.” 

 

_ And you can’t even see the people who would love you more than you can imagine. _

 

“I’m sorry?” Jisoo questions, Seungcheol gulps because he doesn’t know whether the voice came from his head or if he verbalised it, “I’m sorry I’m hanging onto hopes then, thanks for all the blind dates that I totally never appreciated, because Mingyu just wanted to anger his boyfriend Wonwoo with my presence, Hansol lead me on subconsciously and I was ready to let myself believe it, Seungkwan took a glance at me and decided I was too quiet for him. Thanks for all the dates, and Jeonghan, my next, was your ex and add guilt to the list. I’m sorry I couldn’t let go of someone who didn’t love me as much as I like okay? I see Jeonghan, goodbye.” 

 

Seungcheol registers the unbuckling of seatbelts and the door closing, taking it as his cue to leave. Right, poking to Jisoo’s sore spot over a passing comment over the  _ fucking weather, _ so fucking damn logical. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally got down to something after my majors and I originally intended to finish this before I upload it but figures that maybe I should upload in chapters instead. Comments are well appreciated since I'm still somewhat iffy about this because i differs from what I usually write so.


End file.
